George Criddle (born. 1984) is a British-Australian artist, writer, and occasional curator currently teaching at RMIT University and the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. They completed a PhD in 2021 at Monash University and have previously studied at Curtin University in Perth and École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Since 2005 George has been part of international exhibitions and residencies in Kassel, Zurich, Paris and Prague as well as exhibitions in Melbourne at The Living Museum of the West, MADA faculty Gallery, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, and artist-run spaces such as Kings, West Space, Blindside, Slopes gallery and TCB gallery. They are currently on the board of KINGS Artist Run Gallery as Co-ordinator of the Emerging Writers Program with Beatrice Rubio-Gabriel.
An exhibition of work for my PhD candidature (2017–21) with work made on the unceded traditional lands of Aboriginal people in many places: the lands of the Wurundjeri people where I live; the lands of the Boonwurrung people where I research and teach; the lands of the the Aboriginal people of the Upper Murray Region near Jingellic, NSW; the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people where my family live and the lands of Yamatji people of places now called Greenough and Geraldton. I pay respects to past, present and future elders of these lands as well as First Nations Peoples everywhere.
‘Shifting mentality: a case study in going home’ is a practice based research project that incorporates material and relational strategies in order to raise awareness about silenced settler-colonial histories within my Anglo-Australian settler family. The research and final exhibition ‘The True Nature of What We’re Up Against’ has been informed by French philosopher Catherine Malabou’s concept of ‘mentality,’ Goenpul Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s concept of white possessive logic, as well as Aboriginal Gumbainggir activist, academic, writer, and actor Gary Foley’s directives to white supporters of Aboriginal justice to understand the true nature of what we’re up against by looking in the mirror, ‘go(ing) home’ and talking to family. Works in the exhibition have been made for my immediate and extended family and include a mobile diagram of objects, and an experimental text-based artwork titled: Summaries of a Settler Artist’s Journal (letters to Elizabeth Criddle et al.)